Michael Egan says that my latest comment about 1 Richard II is full of straight lies, including the claim that the panel he hurried to set up to evaluate my original argument “was selected in accordance with procedures agreed upon by Egan.” Not so. Not so!

The rules governing the procedure were negotiated between Egan and Ward Elliott. After they reached an understanding, Elliott set them out in an email dated October 31, 2010, which contains the following paragraph:

“Panel: Larry Weiss, convener, and two non-anonymous members of my Golden Ear panel chosen and recruited by him as he thinks best.”

Egan responded to this email with one word: “Agreed.”

After the panel was completed in this fashion and the identities of the members reported to both sides, Egan requested modifications to the rules relating to the materials the panel would consider. At no time did he object to any member of the panel or to the manner of their selection. After extensive back-and-forth, the parties reached an amended agreement to satisfy Egan’s demands. The amendment was reflected in an exchange of emails on February 14, 2011, three and a half months after the initial stipulation (“hurried”?). The February stipulation explicitly “confirmed” all other provisions of the October 31 agreement. These emails are set out at large in Appendices A and B to the panel’s opinion, which is in the SHAKSPER archives. It was only after he and Elliott had both completed their submissions to the panel that Egan purported to withdraw, and his excuse was that he was personally affronted by a comment in an email by Elliott, not that the procedure was unfair to him in the slightest.

In what way is my statement a “lie,” or inconsistent with this record in the slightest particular?

Egan then says: “Secondly, despite Weiss’s characteristic sneer, there are in fact those who do accept my attribution, and the momentum is growing. Many Shakespearean scholars have said so in print, some in passing and others in considerable detail.”

Who? Where? Citations please.

This assertion reminds me of an email Egan sent me on December 9, 2010, which asserted that his “thesis is slowly gaining acceptance” and referred to an article in The Oxfordian which he said contained a “devastating rebuttal” to MacDonald P. Jackson’s contrary view. Egan did not cite any other support for the “growing acceptance” or identify the author of the Oxfordian article. It turns out that the author was none other than Michael Egan, who is also the editor-in-chief of The Oxfordian. And he questions my scholarly integrity!

I could only be partial to Dr. Egan’s Thomas of Woodstock ascription. As a non-scholar with little leisure, I won’t give credibility to anyone who protested a 20,000-word limit on acase brief; nor can I engage arguments for a play I find aesthetically negligible.

On the other hand, I don’t agree with everything Larry Weiss writes. Assuming Frampton’s facts check out, I think the Florio article could be taken more seriously than Larry suggests. Words Shakespeare didn’t use in the Quartos appear in F1 -- words in Florio’s diction. F1‘s Epistle Dedicatorie and address to Variety of Readers are also worth investigating—the former a Florio “trademark”, the latter has diction unfamiliar to Shakespeare’s contemporaries but familiar to Florio. (Frampton article is my only source.)

I appreciate the composite nature of Early Modern play texts before they go to printers (I read the beginning and conclusion of Stern’s Documents of Performance in Early Modern England.) On that score, Weiss’s objections are valid. But it’s at least fair to propose that Florio was a editor/compositor, if not the editor/compositor of F1.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out?

Parsing out possible passages Florio inserted is a task for stylometricists, no? Please let us know, stylometricists, if you discover something conclusive. And perhaps someone will let us know whether Epistle Dedicatorie was specific to Florio.

It must be clear by now to regular readers that Larry Weiss has an unhealthy obsession with me and my work. His latest comment about 1 Richard II is full of straight lies, including the claim that the panel he hurried to set up to evaluate my original argument “was selected in accordance with procedures agreed upon by Egan.” Not so. Not so! I had no say in setting up the panel, and withdrew from the process in part because of this. The story is detailed in my reply to Weiss and Co.’s statement.

Secondly, despite Weiss’s characteristic sneer, there are in fact those who do accept my attribution, and the momentum is growing. Many Shakespearean scholars have said so in print, some in passing and others in considerable detail. Not publicly on this listserv, however, because most readers are afraid of Hardy Cook and his willingness to banish or silence. Can you imagine what his classroom must have been like? Cook has long made known his disregard for my case (which of course he has not read in full, like Weiss and his panelists). Listserv readers do write to me privately, however, expressing their support.

Michael Egan

[Editor’s Note: This is the second time that Dr. Egan has casually thrown around the aspersion that I have banished subscribers. I only time I have threatened this was when subscribers were abusing the rights of other subscribers by sending them unsolicited and unwanted e-mails. Frankly, I am flattered to be attributed so much POWER (yes, shouting) when all I ever aspired to be was an electronic Louis Marder. –Hardy]

Gabriel Egan wrote “not to defend the claim that Florio edited the Folio’s copy, but to argue that Weiss’s response isn’t an adequate refutation of it.”

I didn’t claim to refute it, but only to raise questions which I believe have to be answered for us to accept the surmise, and I expressed eagerness to read the forthcoming book for the answers.

As for Gabriel’s quibble that the compositors were identified much less than 200 years ago, I didn’t say it was that long ago. I merely provided a rough age for the entirety of bibliographical research, not just compositors. If I was less than clear, I apologize to anyone who was offended or misled.